Creative Problem Solving Made Easy

Newall, Shaw and Simon (1963) proposed four criteria for creativity.

1. Answer can novelty or usefullness for society or individual
2. Answer demands that we reject previous ideas accepted
3. answer results from intense motivation and persistence
4. answer comes from clarifying a problem that was originally vague 

How many different types of creativity is there? Can it be objectively verified and how do we judge the level of creativity involved, especially across different mediums?

Does creativity really need to be usefull? You cannot utilise the works of Shakespeare in the same way that Quantum Theory has been used, but are they equally 'creative'? 

The research into problem solving has looked at why some people are 'expert' problem solvers and others are 'novices'. 

De Groot (1965) studied chess grand masters and novice players. In their first experiment the participants were shown chess positions from actual games, for five seconds. They were then asked to re-create these board positions. Grand Masters could recall 91% correctly, whilst Novices only recalled 41% Indicating that maybe grand masters have a better memory...

HOWEVER

Their second experiment involved showing the participants board positions not from any actual game, just random positions. In this trial the grand masters performed no better than the novices, so they did not have a better memory as such. They had 'domain' specific knoledge about chess to rely on, a stored bank of memory involving many chess games, known as an extensive 'schemata' 

Chi et al (1982) studied Ph.D and undergraduate physics students, they were asked to categorise problems according to similarity on how they should be solved.

He found qualitative differences in the answers given by the two groups of students. He found that the Ph.D students (experts) categorised the problems based on their 'deep structure' the major physics principals which were behind the problems, whilst the novices categorised on a similar surface structure, and focused on the words / objects used. Whilst the experts spent more time representing the problem, the novices spent less time on this, though they were slower overall to reach an answer. In fact the experts solved the problems four times as fast.

Larkin et al (1980) discovered that experts work forwards, whilst novices work backwards. 

What was once commonly known as the 'eureka' moment, that sudden epiphany or realisation is known scientifically regarded as the process of 'spreading activation' or subliminal stimulation, it comes during the 'incubation' period (see wallas) and involves the process of linkage and activation amongst connecting neurons in the brain, this spreading of activation eventually leads the individual to the knoledge they were searching for. Which often comes in a sudden blast of insight, like a light bulb being switched on.

A certain level of intelligence is required for creative thought, but beyond that level intelligence has a minimal impact on creativity. It is also important to consider the different notions of 'intelligence' IQ tests which are the standard means of assesing a persons IQ are not all encompassing and ignore creative modalities such as music and art.

Famile environment can be an important factor, and an interesting fact is that creative people do not always emerge from nurturing families, in fact a certain amount of turmoil can give the creative person the drive they need to help them self express.

There is a link between creativity and personality type. Creative individuals are often independant, non conformist, have wide interests and are open to new experiences. An interesting fact is that creativity is also linked to certain amounts of psychopathology, though this is by no means akin to saying that everyone who is creative must have a mental health problem!

In fact nature and nurture seem to be working together here. 

There are certain factors which impede creative problem solving, they can include, poor representation abilities, low intelligence, working 'backwards' from a problem rather than forwards.

Mental Fixedness can impede problem solving, this was demonstrated by the "stick a candle to the wall" experiment, which involved giving a candle a box of tacks and matches to a participant and asking them to stick the candle to the wall. The participants were unable to realise that the solution was to nail the tack box to the wall as a makeshift candle holder, they were unable to 're-conceptualise' the box of tacks as having any other property.

Mental set involves applying the same logical solutions to a set of problems despite an easier or more efficient solution being available. Mental set and fixedness often occur toegther.

Unwarranted Assumptions can also affect creative problem solving, as demonstrated in the '9 dot problem' in which the participant must draw four straight lines covering all the dots, without taking the pen of the page, the answer is that the participants must draw outside of the lines, they had assumed they must stay within the lines, a rule they took for granted.

Certain political environments can impede the process of creativity, such as communist China under the Rule of Chairman Mao. Or the Unamerican activities  entries in the 1950's including Charlie Chaplin and Arthur Miller.  Nations engaged in war will also experience an interuption to the process of creativity. 

Brainstorming

This is widely used in industry and had proven to work well, as long as certain rules are followed. Quantity first, quality later, the wilder the ideas the better, deffered judgement of ideas, criticism ruled out.

The use of Analogies 

Personal analogies "putting yourself in its place"

direct analogies "try to find parralels in other areas (telephone - human ear analogy)

Fantasy analogy "you cab BE DO anything!!"

Symbolic analogy "using imagery to reach a solution"

Reject the notion that you aren't creative

Recognise that there can be more than one type of creativity

Don't follow none existant rules!!

Learn to use alternative methods / give alternative answers

Find the creative person in you.